Endocrine Abstracts

Calorie restriction (CR), a form of dietary regime which reduces caloric intake below the habitual unrestricted food intake is a strategy to control weight. The benefits associated with CR are numerous but the associated constant feeling of hunger makes adherence to the CR regime difficult. In the present study certain appetite regulatory hormones and endocrine markers during CR were studied. Male Sprague–Dawley rats were randomly divided into control and test groups (n=12 rats/group) where the control rats were ad libitum fed and experimental rats were kept on a 25% CR diet for a period of 5 days. The regulatory hormones and peptides i.e. ghrelin, leptin, CCK, NPY, insulin, IGF1, corticosterone, adiponectin and thyroid hormones were estimated in plasma at the end of the experiment. Decrease in body weight was 6.8% in the test group while there was a gain in body weight by 5.3% in the control rats over the 5-day period. Plasma levels of ghrelin and NPY were found to be significantly higher (P<0.05) in comparison to control while leptin was below the limit of detection. Insulin was not affected significantly in the CR diet in the test group. A small decline in adiponectin was found in the CR group. Partial food restriction caused a slight reduction in plasma CCK and significantly decreased IGF1 levels. Low levels of circulating T₃, as a result of energy deficit with elevated blood T₄ levels were found. The findings of the present study could be used for formulation of high satiety low calorie diets for control of metabolic disorders due to over nutrition.

Declaration of funding: Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences, DRDO, Min. of Defence, Delhi, India.